CINEVERSITY

Hi base-bone,

Sadly, I have no M3 here, and I would like to wait for the studio version this time since the M1 MBP is sufficient, and I currently do not want to replace it.

However, I will ask others on the team who have that option about their experience with the M3. If some negative is given, I will report back.

This can have many reasons. (AFAIK:) Changes in the Nodes lead artists to set the refresh only while the IPR is idle, as the "real" preview of material is checked in the IPR instead. So, the material preview itself is secondary and doesn't slow down the IPR.

This leads to whether this always happens or only when the IPR is active.
Screenshot 2024-03-10 at 2.35.10 PM.jpg

Another question would be, if nothing else in the scene shows that problem and fresh material shows that problem, then this should be checked with tech support.

Anything that needs to be handled by the GPU requires space. I assume nothing new to you, but I write in a forum, so forgive me. This means existing data from a scene needs to be kicked out temporarily.

In the older (XPresso Style) Node editor, you have other Options, such as Auto Refresh.

Sometimes, setting the Preview size too small in the material helps, but I also read that people did not benefit from it, which indicates that it depends on several parts of the whole pipeline.

My personal take, not backed up so far by training material, is that the great optimization in the app is countered by huge Node trees while handling things that could be set up in an image editor first and then merged to a single texture, optimized to the size needed, instead of just having, e.g., 8K texture files for an object that never is prominent in the rendering.

When new external material is added, this is a process of optimization, not just a read action, which can take a moment.

I'm sure I have not covered all, but without a scene file and the same setup as you, I might not be able to answer that. Hence:

It will also be beneficial to check this with tech support just to exclude or include all possibilities.
https://www.maxon.net/en/support-center

All the best

Hi Mark,

Thank you very much for the file and for using Google.

I can export it without a crash and import it without a crash.

The material export import is a different theme altogether.

I'm not aware that FBX has any handling on the Cinema 4D native Blend-Shader. Baking this before might be a good idea. At the same time, I get not tired of saying that AO is an outdated thing and should not be multiplied. If you must have that effect, typically already included in GI, use the AO as a mask for color adjustments. AO is a geometry effect, and no light source will change that. Hence, the effect looks fake. With the Color adjustment method, one can at least get the fill light's color established, typically during the day outside cold and in the evening or inside warmer. Or, like in a dense forest, it would be greener with all the thinkable varieties.

To my knowledge, no system on the market allows for a universal exchange of materials among all the DCCs and their options to convert materials to their native idea about it.

The best way is to ensure all textures and UV data are included and the receiving app provides its optimized material for the rendering if needed, manually set up. This is not a Cinema 4D limitation. The industry has been looking for a long time to establish a universal format. Perhaps we will get one—one day.

Enjoy your weekend

You're very welcome, cyrilrueg!

Thanks for the reply.

My best wishes for your project.

Thanks for doing that, model-raise!

You're spot on to ask; I certainly understand and support this.

There is an entry for Tech-Support in the upper right corner.

Screen Shot 2023-12-14 at 2.21.40 PM.png

My personal take on this is:
I haven't paid a lot of attention to USD and materials. The simple reason is that the translation of materials and color is all over the place, considering the vast amount of material systems on the market alone from 3rd party rendering engines. Yes, the idea that all fits through the definitions of the USD system.
But even that simple opacity problem requires some work. I often have my materials based on MoGraph, for example. That is, as far as I know, not an option. Even though I do not expect to have the MG set up arriving, the colors are gone. So, more work is needed regarding USD definitions and options.
Or take the Maxon Noises, animated perhaps; I haven't seen an option.
I need to dive deeper into it, no question. I believe it will get better.

Cheers

Hi Greg,

When I place an RS Renderview in the lower left corner, save that Layout as RS View, then move that RS Render View to the upper right corner, and save it as RS View 2, then it stays there.

BUT: not when I go from RS View directly to RS View 2, only when I use a different Layout in between. I change the RS view two by scaling the RS Render smaller.

Then, I save the layout, but I have to go to another layout for a moment, as the hardwired rule (AFAIK) seems to be that the last window appearance sticks, so I have to go out and then to the desired one with the same windows.

I have no idea how to overcome this.

Perhaps check with tech support. Admittedly, even if I like to have things differently, I need to stay in the standard layout as a trainer. Hence, this is not an area where I have a lot of muscle memory.

All the best

P.S.: Here is the screencapture of the file from above.

https://stcineversityprod02.blob.core.windows.net/$web/Cineversity_Forum_Support/2023_Clips_DRS/20231020_GI_separate-Lights.mp4

You're very welcome, quarter-strategy.

Please never worry about a late reply.

Let me know if there is something else; I'm happy to look onto it.

All the best

Hi Dutchbird,

I'm so glad to hear it.

Well done.

Enjoy

You're very welcome,

Speed set the Voxel size for the time of exploration as large as possible. Keep in mind that between 10 cm and 0.1 cm, the difference in amount of voxels is around 100^3 or 1,000,000. This is super simplified, but keep the values for the size large (Low amount!) and go only smaller (Higher!) when needed.

Perhaps download Cinebench and google for results to see how your setup works comparatively. An activity Monitor or Task Manager allows for some exploration if the system reaches a limit.
Switch off all apps and functions that eat into your performance. Google is typically one app that asks for a lot of performance. Enabling redshift only when needed is a current circulating tip.

Please remember that tutorials can be recorded and sped up, then the commentary is placed on top. The tutorial should be slower, as the screen recording is active at the same time.

I do not want to go deeper here, as this forum is not about hardware. But perhaps I have to suggest at one point to have an Ask The Trainer show about performance optimizations of hardware stuff.

However, as a friend told me three decades ago when he got his first NeXT system: Whenever something gets faster, we put more options in our software and have it a little bit slowed down in return. I feel that is not so much different these days. Of course, the primary trend is that everything gets faster (Silicon and code), and expectations might run hot at one point.

All the best

Hi adploshko,

Please have a look here:
https://help.maxon.net/c4d/2023/en-us/Default.htm#REDSHIFT/html/Redshift+Material+Tools.html?TocPath=Material%2520Manager%257C_____2
The second red framed text. I have attached an image.

Screen Shot 2023-05-05 at 7.46.52 PM.png
I quote here only. It is not my opinion, nor do I spoil here any secrets; it is since a while in the manual; Obviously, it is not read.

NPR is not a defined look. The term is based on excluding something that is also not defined. Or why do we, as Cinematographers, argue about Film vs. Digital?

I know it might be splitting hairs, but asking for NPR is so general that I can't provide an answer here. Redshift is, going public announcements for quite a while, creating a new NPR system. If it were just a few nodes tossed into a Node editor, it would be released by now, IMHO.

Here are two examples to get information from the Cinema 4D default Node system.

CV4_2023_drs_23_NOcd_01.c4d
CV4_2023_drs_23_NOcd_11.c4d

This is certainly NPR. 😉

Enjoy your weekend

You're too kind, Dutchbird. 🙂

Enjoy your weekend!

Thanks for the feedback, miss-bear.

Great! Thanks for the feedback.

I hesitated with the UV suggestion, as that is not just a general do-this-do-that suggestion. In other words, if you have a UV solution, like UV Packaging, those can't be just rotated (well, sometimes, sometimes not). Hence why I always ask for a project file.

All the best

Hi Zappa,

Yes, there is always too little time.

My suggestion to help that a little bit, keep asking questions. Besides that, set up small scenes and render privies in Stamp size. The primary stop in learning is a slow response from your "machine"; no matter the speed of your computer, it is always slow when it holds things that don't matter for that moment. I understand when little time is given, one like to have at least one thing rendered out as a reward.

A good mix is the best approach. Just a plane object and a sphere plus material and light, one light! Never toss too many things in a scene. A typical mistake is the illusion of progress by loading things in the scene because one has them. (… based on my observation over nearly two decades of mentoring artists)

Keep it super simple. Then explore while rendering in 1/4 of HD or smaller, just enough to get feedback. The more you learn, the faster you will be. No beefy CPU will replace this. 😉 (I have rendered as preview three projects this evening in 480x270 to get an idea of the speed and progress of a scene in terms of color and animation. That makes me faster than anyone who always renders as large as possible. I learned that in 2004 from an ILM artist.

The more you get familiar with the mix of parameters, the faster you get where you like to be, and so, the little time you have is better used. Yes, that is a little bit slower at first.

Your question, some materials can be reproduced quickly, but some need more complex calculations. This is all I can say, based on a general question.

Enjoy

You're very welcome, Larson Monkey!

Thanks for the feedback!

Hi foot-view,

I shared the wrong text first, please delete the email, thank you very much.

I will check with the team if that can be part of the tutorials in the future.

I love to inspect files, and they are helpful, no questions

For now, perhaps check Elly's series, she shares files with a lot of Redshift 3D material.

https://youtube.com/live/HZYdA_qqsTg

Scroll down to the text file.

Other than that, there is a nice collection in the Asset browser.

All the best